It will not build so I just copied the .pm and .xs files into my perl lib folder

That'll be your problem. You haven't built the non-Perl part of the module. The .xs file is C code so unless you have a C compiler on your system (guessing Win32, although you didn't mention it) then that's not going to happen.

Your best bet is to use the PPM tool which comes with ActiveState Perl. The ActiveState repositories may not have a PPD for your module, but you can probably find one elsewhere on the internet (try googling for "rrds ppd").

I hope this helps!

It seems that RRDs.pm is not a CPAN module (which, in my mind makes it instantly a bit suspect!) and that means that it's highly unlikely that ActiveState will have support for it in ppm. There may be another ppm repository that contains it - or perhaps one of the other ppm repository owners would take a request make it available.

Otherwise, as it contains an XS component you'll need to build it yourself. For which you'll need a C compiler.

Hi. I have already tried to install using the ppd file but this will not work. I used the instructions here http://sicm.sourceforge.net/install.html. But I get this error when I tyep install RRDs: error: can't parse : File does not exist: at C:/Perl/site/lib/PPM/PPD.pm line 1 99. any ideas please? Everything seems to be against me! I have even tried to compile with a c compiler but that also gives me errors.

The error message would seem to say you typed your command into PPM incorrectly?

I downloaded the zip file from that site and extracted it into c:\temp\rrd\ . I then CD'd into directory c:\temp\rrd\perl-shared . I then started ppm3 and entered the command

    install "C:/temp/rrd/perl-shared/RRDs.ppd"
[download]

and got output

====================
Install 'RRDs' version 1.000481 in ActivePerl 5.8.4.810.
====================
Downloaded 358639 bytes.
Extracting 17/17: blib/lib/rrds.pm
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\rrds\rrds.bs
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\rrds\rrds.dll
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\rrds\rrds.exp
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\rrds\rrds.lib
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\rrds\rrds.pdb
Files found in blib\arch: installing files in blib\lib into architecture depende
nt library tree
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\ntmake.pl
Installing C:\Perl\site\lib\rrds.pm
Successfully installed RRDs version 1.000481 in ActivePerl 5.8.4.810.

rrdtool (http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/rrdtool) is an amazing open source utility that I recommend for anyone that wants to easily visualise trends in their data.
--
Clayton

Hi I have gone into ppm and typed install "C:\rrdtool\perl-shared\RRDs.ppd" but i get this error and ppm bombs out: error: can't parse : File does not exist: at C:/Perl/site/lib/PPM/PPD.pm line 199. I have ppm version 3.1 and activestate perl 5.8.4. Does anyone know how to fix this?